While the world is moving towards an Open Science model of exchange of scientific information, there are, as expected, forces that are trying to oppose it. Whenever there is a movement to change any kind of system, those most likely to lose will make a last-ditch and nasty effort to temporarily derail the progress.

Related: more posts from our open access category – The Future of Scholarly Publication – Open Access Legislation – The Future of the Scholarly Journal
A similar righteous outrage surrounded the Corporate hypocrisy by HP (it took about a week as I remember before HP capitulated – when they finally realized the best option was to admit the blogosphere was right and they were wrong). I wonder if that will happen this time. My guess is they will not follow Bora Zivkovic advice to join “the new world of Open Science and using their brand names, their know-how and their infrastructure to become the leaders in the new system.” That is good advice. It would be nice to see this PR move backfire and speed up the transition to a modern open exchange of scientific ideas, instead of system trapped in an outdated way of thinking.

“PLoS on the other hand recently hired Bora Zivkovic as PLoS ONE Online Community Manager. He will be great and continue to build PLoS into an organization supporting free and open science. I loved PLoS proactive action recounted by Bora…”

“It is time for the scientific community to give up on these journals and work with new organizations that will encourage scientific communication and advancement (PLoS – arXiv.org…) and leave those that seek to keep outdated practices to go out of business…”